


An Uncivilized Citizen

by Dayadhvam



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Loyalty, One-Sided Attraction, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayadhvam/pseuds/Dayadhvam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass.</i> Five times Seivarden could have left, and didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Uncivilized Citizen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kutsushita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kutsushita/gifts).



> This is alternate POV for scenes set during _Ancillary Justice_. I had a lot of fun getting into Seivarden's head, with her attitude and language. Happy Yuletide! :)
>
>> “What’s the difference,” Lieutenant Awn said, so quietly it didn’t seem like a break in the silence, “between citizens and noncitizens?”
>> 
>> “One is civilized,” said Lieutenant Skaaiat with a laugh, “and the other isn’t.” The joke only made sense in Radchaai— _citizen_ and _civilized_ are the same word. To be Radchaai is to be civilized.
>> 
>> \- Ann Leckie, _Ancillary Justice_  
> 

1.

When Seivarden at last trudged back to the house in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, her hands were numb from fiddling with the exposed, chilled parts of the flier—which had, of course, failed to start. Her face was wet with melting snow. No doubt it was the snow. The tears of frustration she had wept outside had already dried and died upon her skin.

Breq was awake, and had claimed a spot on a bench in the main room. Under her dispassionate gaze, Seivarden drew back and shivered, crossing her arms; she shifted her eyes from Breq to the ugly stringed instrument Breq held, and said, thinking of the _Sword of Nathtas_ —of the captain of the _Sword of Nathtas_ , Seivarden Vendaai, _Captain_ Vendaai: “I want to leave.”

She spoke as if she could make it so, and for a moment she almost believed herself.

Breq ignored the command. Unsurprising; she wasn’t even Radchaai, after all. “We’ll leave when I’m ready,” she said, toying with the strings of the instrument. Seivarden knew Breq liked music; had heard her humming to herself often enough, and wished—more than often enough—that Breq would just shut up.

Yet like her commands, Seivarden’s wishes rarely came true in this terrible new world. Breq didn’t shut up; she sneered at Seivarden, didn’t even have the good taste to complain about the tea, idly wondered why Seivarden shouldn’t die, and ordered her about like—like—

“I want to leave,” she moaned later, her face wet again too. The roof had no leaks, and no snow fell in the house. She was utterly spent from crying. “Why can’t I leave?” Why not? She could scavenge supplies, find a map, and trek out to find a better fate. She wasn’t unsteady, Seivarden thought; surely she could do it. Even without kef, even without Breq—

“I have business here.”

Business here? In this wasteland? How fucking uncivil. But, grumbling, sniffling, Seivarden obeyed.

 

2.

After the bridge: the emptiness beneath her feet, the wind biting at her unarmored self, the mocking darkness of the tubes. And Breq’s body, warm against her own.

So she said, “I’m staying with you,” and Breq gave her a mildly perplexed look, as if the fall from the bridge had been of no consequence, as if she'd thought Seivarden didn't have the capacity to care. Then Breq closed her eyes, and told Seivarden that, given another case of theft, there’d be no problem in breaking her legs.

Well, the broken legs would make up for Breq’s broken arms. Seivarden couldn’t argue with that, even if Breq wasn’t Special Forces.

 

3.

On the shuttles that would take them to the Radchaai consulate, Breq sang as much as she ever did, or at least when Seivarden could hear. Seivarden half-regretted her decision to stay; no one would ever willingly hire Breq from the Gerentate as a musical performer. Aatr’s tits, but her voice was a pain.

“Your boss is an odd one, isn’t she?” said one of their fellow passengers on the second shuttle.

Seivarden shrugged. Breq _was_ an odd one: bleeding into gold bowls, lacking any discriminating taste in tea (Seivarden had leapt to volunteer to purchase tea for the both of them, to which Breq had never offered an objection), and the _singing_. Some of the melodies had even worked their way into Seivarden’s memory, much to her quiet dismay. Childish ones, about the planet going around the sun and the moon going around the planet—if you asked Seivarden, a silly representation of unswerving loyalty and devotion to the Radch, or to a patron; or incomprehensible ones, that weren’t even sung in Radchaai; or perplexing ones, that were sung in Radchaai but were mixed with off-rhythms, or uncomfortably different tonalities, and offered ridiculous statements such as, _My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass_.

No one ate hearts the way they ate fish. Then again, Seivarden had never claimed to be much of a poet.

“She’s been kind to me,” she said. It didn’t matter if Seivarden thought Breq was strange—she’d spent several months with Breq already—but this stranger could stand to keep her mouth shut. They’d been introduced already in passing, but Seivarden hadn’t bothered to remember her name. 

“Not saying she isn’t, Citizen,” said the passenger, looking pleased by Seivarden’s response. Or rather, from her style of speech; Seivarden knew she sounded antique and dignified with her accent. Others had remarked on it before. “But,” continued the passenger, “it must get old after a while. I don’t suppose you’ve thought about taking on other work?”

Seivarden shrugged again.

The passenger took this as encouragement and forged ahead. “Just thought I’d let you know—I’m traveling for another half year for personal pleasure, and will be switching at the next station. Your training in that accent is impeccable, and while the honored Breq seems to be an excellent employer, surely you’d be happier with one of us? I’m more than willing to compensate you beyond what you already earn. Besides, the bare hands don’t help.”

A _trained_ accent. What an amateur! What a joke! Seivarden had been _born_ with it. There was no _us_. And she could imagine Breq’s frown. Breq’s hands looked very fine, even if they would look better with gloves; this nonentity had uncivilized taste. “I’ll have to decline, dear Citizen,” she said. “The honored Breq is certainly wealthier than you are.”

When she related the encounter to Breq later, Breq did not frown. She only raised an eyebrow, her face otherwise perfectly blank, and said, “Really? I expect she’ll get around to asking me directly. Though I'm sure she wouldn’t be singing your praises once you ruined her shirts.”

 

4.

In proper Radchaai clothing, Breq was a elegant sight. More than merely elegant. The orange-brown shade of her jacket and trousers proved a stark contrast to her white shirt, and matched her skin well. Even so, she didn’t look particularly pleased while she escorted Seivarden to the clothing retailer, then to the tea shop.

On the other hand, she didn’t look particularly displeased that she’d had to come looking for Seivarden in the first place.

Seivarden flushed at the thought with embarrassment; then flushed with anger, as Breq recounted her meeting with the emissary from some captain. Osck. Just what kind of name was _that_?

Breq sounded disdainful of Seivarden’s disdain. “Absent Vendaai as a functioning house,” she said, “you need to establish yourself somehow,” and bit into the strange algae roll she’d bought. Seivarden could see her fingers shift underneath the thin, thin fabric of her soft gray gloves.

Wait, what? Establish—

Seivarden collected herself. Breq had never offered clientage in all the months they’d known each other. Had been almost robotic, in the way her gaze glossed over attractive people within her purview wherever they had gone. She wouldn’t have expected such an offer from Breq.

Still, Seivarden flushed again. Valiantly shored up her spirits, and looked up from Breq’s sleek gloved hands. “If Captain Vel wanted my good will, or cared at all about my opinion, she made a bad start by insulting you.”

Breq was utterly unmoved. Her next suggestion was no better. Skaaiat Awer? To have to deal with the fanciful Awers? Who could easily brood over some great offense to the universe, and would be happy to fix the situation by murder, or prophecy, or a useless act of protest? Even if Breq truly was from the Gerentate, she would learn that an Awer didn’t always drink the right kind of tea.

Breq was clearly not drinking her tea. Nor was she paying close attention to Seivarden’s warning; her eyes were distant with concentrated thought. Seivarden glanced behind herself and spotted the young inspector they’d first met upon disembarking. “Oh, her. Isn’t she kind of…” Sudden, dawning horror. “… Provincial-looking?” Seivarden finished, and—looking at Breq, who was dressed in Radchaai clothing but did not look at all classically Radchaai the way Seivarden herself did—decided she might as well climb into the hole she’d dug.

Had Breq meant clientage? She hadn’t suggested it. Unless she was waiting to see if she might do so out of pity—

Seivarden looked down at the table, suffering through Breq’s glare and cool rejoinder. Her stomach rebelled at the thought. Out of pity! And as if it’d only been about the clothes! “I just… I was just surprised. All this time, I guess I just assumed you were an ascetic. It just surprised me.”

“You’re not _jealous_?”

“No! Well, yes. But not like _that_.”

The inspector girl clearly owed Breq nothing—not the way Seivarden owed Breq, and always would—yet Breq had looked at her closely. The appraising gaze of a patron? The sharp observation of Special Forces? Seivarden wasn’t sure what to make of it. Breq sounded much the same: “Yesterday the inspector supervisor told me I was in danger of giving you false expectations. Or of giving others the wrong impression.”

Fucking Awers. As if Seivarden needed clientage. Or wanted it…

Seivarden shut down that line of inquiry. It was easier to complain about the clothes and skel, the dirt and the cold. But Breq was listening now, her algae roll half-raised to her mouth, and she finally said, calmly, “So you want your old job back, then?”

“ _Fuck_ yes.” Making tea, ironing shirts—Seivarden wasn’t half-bad at it now. It’d be better with Breq; she liked working for Breq, seeing Breq's approval.

“Language, citizen,” said Breq, but the reproof in her voice didn’t match the thaw in her eyes.

 

5.

“Breq?”

“Not Breq. _Justice of Toren_ ,” said Anaander Mianaai. Which one, Seivarden didn’t know, for she kept her face turned to the floor and couldn’t raise her gaze to look up at the Lord of the Radch. The ability to do so had deserted her; she felt as immovable as if she were once again preserved like fish in ice, the lone survivor in a suspension pod.

Then Breq spoke, but her words seemed to Seivarden nearly incomprehensible, the tone in which she said them devoid of warmth. Unfamiliar, and yet familiar. Out of a vanished past—the neutrality of an ancillary’s voice, old-fashioned and civilized. “ _Justice of Toren_ One Esk. _Justice of Toren_ is destroyed.”

No, thought Seivarden. Impossible. Surely… She stifled the impulse to cross her arms, kneeling as she was. She opened her mouth, and out came her voice, trembling with stilted speech, letting formalities slide. Impossible, she protested. One Esk with a voice like that? Singing? Who’d be so cruel?

Breq from the Gerentate, Breq who could be both rude and kind, humming, singing a childish verse: _It all goes around, it all goes around, the planet goes around the sun, it all goes around_ …

She had almost come to terms with the fact that she was alone in this brave new world, that no one knew her and no one cared. But Breq—

“She was never one of my favorites,” Seivarden heard Breq say, and she thought of the bridge. And afterward, when Breq had lain on the bed at the doctor’s and said with cold reproof in her voice, _You were never a favorite of any of the ships you served on. You don’t believe it’s possible for a ship to have favorites_. Anger, threaded throughout her words, though an ancillary would never have shown it. Was not supposed to show it.

She thought of the bridge.

Anaander Mianaai kept speaking. Breq kept speaking. Seivarden spoke as well, mechanically. She knew only that it was hell to be alone. She couldn’t do that to Breq here, in front of the Lord of the Radch.

And Seivarden was selfish, too.

“Go away, Seivarden,” said Breq. Said _Justice of Toren_ One Esk—her voice flat, her body taut as a drawn string. She was not singing.

But still Seivarden did not go. She said, turning her face upward: “Sorry.” _Sorry I’m not your favorite. Sorry I wasn’t who you wanted. But still,_ I _want this, so—_ “You’re stuck with me.”


End file.
